


How to Go Crazy in Eight Easy Steps

by StripedSunhat



Series: A Village of One [10]
Category: Girl Genius (Webcomic)
Genre: Boris Needs a Raise, Boris Needs a Raise and a Half, Gen, Growing Up, Leaving Home, Parenthood, Why Klaus needs therapy, Why Sparks need therapy, hint hint Klaus, parenthood means letting go
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-14
Updated: 2019-08-14
Packaged: 2020-08-23 05:27:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,378
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20237476
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StripedSunhat/pseuds/StripedSunhat
Summary: Step 1: Send your son to college.Steps 2-8: WaitThe first week after Gil leaves for Paris is... interesting.(A train wreck.  It is a flaming train wreck.  And Klaus is stuck standing next to it wearing the conductor's hat)One week down, two-hundred and seven to go.





	How to Go Crazy in Eight Easy Steps

1

The empire never stopped demanding. Klaus clawed out time for himself occasionally but that time had never actually been free. There was always something of vital importance he should be doing instead. At any given moment there were at least a hundred different problems that needed his personal attention. Going by that logic there should never be a lapsed moment in his life.

And yet staring at his desk the morning after Gilgamesh left for Paris Klaus could not thing of a single, solitary thing he could be doing.

There was a knock on his door. How long had he been sitting there? His eyes were dry and itchy. A further catalogue revealed stiff shoulders and a dry mouth. “Herr Baron?” Boris called through the door. Klaus blinked. He must have zoned back out again.

“Come in!”

Boris shuffled in, arms weighed down with a small mountain of paperwork. “I brought you the next batch of reports. If there aren’t enough I can always go get…” Boris looked up, noticing the untouched reports covering Klaus’s desk. Huh. He could have been doing those, couldn’t he? Funny that he didn’t notice them before. “…more. Herr Baron are you alright?

“I’m fine Boris.” He’s only here alone, while Gilgamesh was half a continent away, _alone_, far too far away to get to in time if anything happened, half a continent away where he would stay _for **years.**_ “What is it? And why are you trying to drown me in paperwork?”

“I… figured you’d want to bury yourself in work. Considering Gi–”

“Sit. You can join me in it.” The first two were really things Boris should be handling, clearly brought to Klaus to help with the burying. The third one was worth Klaus’s attention. He passed off the other two and got to work.

In the space of time it took Boris to finish his two reports Klaus had read two sentences. Maybe. He couldn’t remember what either of them said if he wasn’t looking at them. Boris set his report on his other two completed ones. “Sir?”

“I only gave you two reports.”

“You did. I found another one that would be appropriate for me to handle.”

“How?”

“By riffling through all of them.”

“In front of me.”

“Yes, Herr Baron.” Standing up, Boris walked around the desk approaching him like one would a wounded wild animal. “Maybe we should come back to the paperwork at another time. It’s clear you’re still highly… distracted.”

Distracted. Boris might as well call it what it is. Nonfunctioning.

Klaus pushed up from the desk. “I’m going to take a walk.”

~

Taking walks through the airship was a common unwinding method for Klaus. It allowed him to actually move and kept him from going crazy. It was also much more relaxing without Boris hovering three steps behind him like a worried nursemaid. After the fifth time he literally ran into Klaus due to too sudden stops Klaus’s patience had reached his end.

“Herr Baron–”

Klaus spun on his heel, ready to commit murder. **_“What?”_**

“Assassin.”

“What?”

Boris didn’t even blink. He pointed to something over Klaus’s shoulder. “There’s an assassin at the end of the hall.”

_How did he miss that?_

Well it was gratifying to know that dealing with assassins was still something he could handle. The assassin went down almost laughably easy. Of course Klaus may or may not have used a tad more force than strictly wise for someone you plan to take alive. “You couldn’t seriously think this would work,” he told the assassin, pulling him to his feet.

“Yeah, yeah. Death to the empire and all that jazz.” The assassin craned his neck this way and that. “Hey where’s the kid?”

Klaus froze. “What.”

“I guess he’s not much of a kid anymore. Fine, young man.” The assassin rolled his shoulders, getting comfortable in Klaus’s grip and leaned further to look down the hall. “He’s supposed to be really friendly, albeit in a terrifying kind of way. Granted Bob was trying to kill him to keep him from raising the alarm so there’s that.” He glanced back at Klaus. “So where is he?”

Absolute silence reigned.

The assassin shuffled his feet. “Somebody didn’t… actually manage to off him, did they? Who was it? Was it Tom? Because if he jumped his spot in line I’m going to be pissed.”

Klaus shoved the assassin into Boris’s arms. “I am going to bed.”

“It’s two in the afternoon,” the assassin said.

“What of it.”

2

Packing up the things Gil had left behind was harder than he had anticipated. He’d arrived at the school in the dark hours of the morning, intending to be finished and gone before the students ever woke up. So far he’d been standing just inside the closed doorway staring at the empty room for over four hours. Every time he moved to start he found himself caught by this wave of grief. Which was stupid. Gil was at university, not _dead_. Trying to leave the room was even worse. Like leaving it untouched felt like he was making the room into a shrine. _Gil was not dead._

And then there was the fact that despite that it was all the things Gil didn’t feel were important enough to take with him, it felt – wrong – to go through it. Like he was trespassing where he didn’t belong into private corners of his son’s life. He stared at the room for several more minutes.

Screw it. He’d get the head of the airship’s inventory to deal with it. It would be just as invasive but at least Klaus wouldn’t be the one doing the invasion. Mind made up he threw open the door to Gil’s former room.

“Gah!!” A student – roughly three or four years younger than Gil, not one Klaus immediately recognized, a new acquisition? – wheeled backwards frantically. “Where the hell did you c– Herr Baron!!”

“Aren’t you supposed to be in class?”

“Um, uhh–”

“Never mind. Just go.” The student fled, scurrying full-speed down the hall. Klaus chose to ignore him in favor of retrieving the head of inventory.

~

The head inventory clerk a small, paunchy man who had clearly clawed his way to the head of inventory in the hopes that anytime Klaus needed someone from inventory he’d settle for the first underling from the department he could grab. Normally that assessment would be correct. But this was Gil’s room. So he’d not only tracked down the head of inventory but his two immediate subordinates.

“I expect a detailed, itemized list of absolutely everything.”

The man kept shooting Klaus nervous glances and clutching at his clipboard like a lifeline. “Yes, Herr Baron.”

“And when I say everything I mean it. If you stumble across a ball of lint I expect it categorized.”

“Of course, Herr Baron.”

Klaus stared the man down. “Excruciating. Detail. I want a man who has never even heard of Gilgamesh to be able to walk into a room filled with duplicates of each and every item and be able to pick out which one is Gil’s from description alone.”

The man gulped. Behind him one of his assistants let out an audible whimper. “Of course Herr Baron.”

“Good. Then get to work.”

~

He was not surprised to be called back to the school within an hour. He really, really wasn’t.

There was a mass of students gathered in the hall around Gil’s room. Somewhere in the center of the mass there was shouting. When Klaus fought his way to the center he found O’Hare screaming madly at the inventory clerks. DuMedd had his arm around her shoulder and could conceivably be seen to be holding her back if it wasn’t for his absolutely mutinous expression. At their shoulders were Yurkofsky and ßulimân al-sinhâjî. Yurkofsky was physically fighting with one of the assistants who was fending him off with a clipboard. He had clearly read Durloff’s paper about managing rampaging Sparks by treating them like rabid animals. Which might work if

  1. A) Yurkofsky had broken through yet
  2. B) the entire theory wasn’t complete and utter crap

“I WON’T LET YOU JUST ERASE GIL LIKE HE NEVER EXISTED!!” O’Hare yelled, struggling against DuMedd.

“What is going on here?”

Everything froze. The head clerk stuck his head out from where he was cowering under the bed. Yurkofsky spat out the clipboard he’d sunk his teeth into. DuMedd loosened his hold on O’Hare. Fortunately the shock of his arrival seemed to have snapped her out of the worst of her rage. She turned toward Klaus and squared her shoulders but didn’t lunge at anyone. “I won’t let you erase Gil away like he never existed,” she repeated, staring up at him.

A headache began to pound behind Klaus’s eyes. “No one is trying to erase Gilgamesh.”

“Then why are they taking his stuff away?”

“Gil is going to be in Paris for years. They’re cataloguing his things and putting them in storage.”

“Sure,” DuMedd said, cold fury in every word. “Put all his stuff out of sight so when down the line he just _happens_ to never come home there’s no reminders of him.”

“Gilgamesh _will_ be coming back.”

O’Hare scoffed.

“Forgive me, Herr Baron,” ßulimân al-sinhâjî said, “if we don’t believe you.” Everyone else stared at them, dead silent. Somehow this had become a standoff between himself and Gil’s closest friends. Over nothing.

Klaus’s headache throbbed. “You four, stay. Everyone else, leave. You have class.” There was a mad rush as the hallway emptied. Klaus turned toward Gil’s old room. The second assistant was tucked away in the corner, calmly detailing a group of pencil stubs. Clearly she was the smartest one. “You. What’s your name?”

“Helga, Herr Baron.”

“Right here’s what’s going to happen. You two” – he waved at the other two inventory clerks ignoring how they flinched – “go stand in the hall.” He turned back to the students. “You four. You will each be allowed to remove one thing – and _only _one thing – of _nonvital_ importance, from Gil’s room. You can keep it with you for the duration of his absence until his return at which point it is to be returned intact and undamaged. Am I clear?” The four children were staring at him. O’Hare looked like he might be trembling slightly. “Am I _clear_?”

“Y-Yes Herr Baron,” DuMedd stuttered out. “Thank you, Herr Baron.”

Klaus turned away, dismissing them. “Helga. You’re in charge of cataloging what they take. I expect it at least twice as detailed as the other list.”

“Yes Herr Baron.”

Counting the entire ordeal as finished Klaus turned and stormed away.

3

Zoing refused to stay in one place. He'd already circled the entirety of the airship twice in the last three days. Klaus should probably stop him. There were definitely places he shouldn’t be getting in. He couldn’t muster up the energy to do so.

Zoing scurried past him; intent on lap number three. Klaus shot his hand out, grabbing him as he went. “That’s more than enough of that.”

The little construct glared up at him. “Allyouzfalt.”

“Gil needs an education.”

The glare got sharper. _“Allyouzfalt.”_

“Gil couldn’t stay on the airship forever. He had to leave _eventually_.” Maybe if he said it out loud enough times he’d start believing it. It hadn’t worked so far. Not even a little bit. “Gil will be back before you know it.”

Zoing made a high-pitched, angry noise. “Ishudgowith.”

“You should go – Is this about how I didn’t let Gil take you to Paris with him.” Zoing let out a string of unintelligible noises. “There’s a reason I didn’t let you go.” Zoing folded his arms and huffed. Klaus ignored it, drawing on years of parenting an exceedingly stubborn child to gather the requisite patience. “Paris is no place for a construct of your size and capacity.”

_“Ishudgowith!”_

And for the second time in three days Klaus’s patience ran out. “Well unfortunately for you, you don’t decide who ‘goes with’ Gil, I do. And I decided that you did not and will not. You’ll have to wait up here with the rest of us.”

Zoing kicked him in the shin. _Red fire_ his feet were hard. “ALLYOUZFALT!” Zoing scurried away, leaving Klaus hopping on one foot, cradling his shin.

4

The explosion was large enough to shake the airship. The intel came in less than two minutes later. It had been an accident at the school and a student was currently missing. Klaus had a moment of absolute panic before remembering Gil wasn’t at the school anymore. He dropped his head on the desk and gave himself thirty seconds to breathe.

A missing child was still a missing child regardless of whether or not it was Gil. So once he calmed down from his accidental freak out he pulled himself forcefully together and went down to the school.

“I heard a student was missing.”

Herr Othmar looked up. His face was streaked with soot and half of his hair was gone, leaving only smoldering ends roughly half a centimeter away from his head. “Yes. Don’t worry, we found her. She got blown up into the rafters and it took a while to realize no one had thought to look there yet. Normally Gil would check up there first thing. But with Gil gone in all the chaos we sort of forgot no one had yet.”

“Is she alright?”

“She’s fine. Von Pinn took her to the infirmary just in case.” Othmar sighed and scrubbed a hand down his face and around his mouth. The soot smudged around to form the vague shape of a clown smile. “Herr Baron, I’m sure you have a plan of some sort, but couldn’t you have at least warned me before you took away the school’s best safety feature?”

“Safety feature?” He hadn’t taken away anything from the school. And he certainly wouldn’t when it came to safety.

“Gilgamesh. Look can I at least ask when the school’s going to get him back? He was the best line of defense against the students’ own impulses that we had.”

Some part of Klaus’s brain shut down. “Gil isn’t coming back to the school,” he heard himself say.

“What? Herr Baron I know you might think he’d be more useful in the labs protecting some of your other Sparks but I feel I must remind you these students –”

“He’s my son.”

All the blood drained from Othmar’s face. His knees wobbled and he sunk to the floor. “Your son.”

“What did you mean ‘safety feature?’”

Othmar stared up at him. “Your son.”

“Yes, which is why, I’m sure you can understand, he’s not returning back to school. Now what did you mean _‘safety feature?’”_

“Your son,” Othmar said again. “Your son. He’s your son.”

Boris went over and pulled Othmar up to his feet. “If you just had your life flash before your eyes entirely like the world’s most demented play, slowing down for the parts that involved Gil, don’t worry, that’s normal.”

Othmar turned toward him, blinking slowly like he’d only just noticed him. “He’s his son.”

“Yes he is.”

Note to self, find a new head for the school in case Othmar didn’t snap out of it.

5

All of Gil’s labs had been shut down and closed up. Not forever. _Not_ forever. But for now, and for the next several years to come.

Klaus kept finding himself in front of their first shared lab. He hadn’t ended up in this hallway so many times in years.

He’d closed up this lab too. He didn’t have to. It was, technically speaking, just as much his lab as Gil’s. He even had some unfinished progets in there. Somewhere. Granted they were projects he hadn’t even thought about were ages but unfinished projects were still unfinished projects.

The idea of setting foot in that lab while Gil was... away, made his stomach twist into tight, angry knots.

Klaus stared at the door in front of him. He wasn’t even sure where he was supposed to be right now. He was pretty sure wherever it was it was on a different floor.

This was ridiculous. It was just as much his lab as Gil’s. He hadn’t been in this lab in years. _Gil_ hadn’t been in this lab in years. It was just a lab.

He turned around and walked away.

Two hours later he found himself back in front of it.

6

The jägers was were pouting. All of them. They were straight-up moping. There’d been no fights between ranks, no teasing of the Lackya, no pranks against Boris. Klaus never thought he’d be upset about peace aboard his airship.

This wasn’t peace it was mourning.

By day six without a single jäger related incident anywhere Klaus is almost ready to organize a hunt just to get rid of the collective depression.

He was in the middle of turning the idea over in his head while catching up on paperwork (because he can still multitask, Gil’s absence hasn’t stripped that from him –) when there was a knock on the door. It took him a moment to realize it’s a jäger who’s come in.

Witold took off his hat, holding it between his hands. He _took off his hat_. Klaus surged to his feet. “What is it what happened?”

Witold blinked, startled. He was startling _jägers_ now. “Nothing happened Herr Baron. Hy jest,” He toyed with the hat still held between his hands. “Hy vas hoping to geet a couple ov days ov leave.”

“That’s all?” Klaus asked dropping into his seat. “You don’t have to come with your hat in your hands for something like that.” He began pulling up the necessary paperwork for unscheduled leave. Normally he’d pass it off to a minion but the first sign of life from any of the jägers felt like it deserved personal attention. “What are you planning on doing during it?” he asked as he searched.

“Hy tought hy’d do som traveling.”

Traveling? That wasn’t a normal jäger answer. And surprisingly vague. It was almost like Witold didn’t want Klaus to know where –

Klaus set the papers down and stared across the desk. “Jägers aren’t allowed in Paris.”

“Who saed hy vas goink to Paris?” Witold said, looking anywhere other than Klaus.

“Leave denied.”

“Hy ken be sneeky!”

“Leave. Denied.”

~

Less than ten minutes later Waramunt showed up. He carefully plucked his hat off his head and held it in front of him. “Herr Baron, hy vanted to request som early leave.”

Klaus didn’t even reach for the papers this time. “Request denied.”

“But –”

“You’re not going to Paris. Now get out.”

~

Fifteen minutes after that Jorgi knocked on his door, hat already in his hands. “Herr Baron hy vanted to talk vith hyu about my leave.”

Klaus dropped his head on the desk. “No.”

Jorgi flung his hands in the hair. His hat got dangerously close to being accidently flung. “But I’m due!”

“I don’t care. Your leave’s been suspended.”

~

When ten minutes later the fourth jäger comes knocking Klaus stands up without a word and pushes past her before she even has a chance to remove her spiked monstrosity of a hat.

He went straight to the jäger generals’ quarters. Klaus burst into the room, scanning it. All of the generals were present, crowded around a table spread with maps and little figurines, either recontextualizing battle strategies or gossiping about the good old days depending on your point of view. Dietrich was tucked into the corner, overlarge hands cradling a cup that reeks of alcohol. “I am suspending leave for the jägers,” Klaus announced.

Goomblast looked up from where he’ been violently smashing a little figurine painted to look like him into a large group of soldier figurines. “Yes, ve had heard abut Jorgi’s leave being suspended. Vot deed he do?”

“_All_ jäger leave is suspended.”

Well that certainly got the generals’ attention. Zog dropped toy airship he’d been playing with. Goomblast stood up, disrupting half the board. Khrizhan choked on the sandwich he’d been chewing on. In his corner Dietrich didn’t move an inch. “Vot hyu meen _all_?” Zog said.

“All. As in every jäger. Indefinitely.”

“Hyu vill have a riot on hyus hands vithin a veek,” Goomblast said.

Khrizhan, who had finally recovered, slammed his hands on the table, knocking over the rest of the board. “Hy vill lead dem! Ve had un understanding und dis ees a disgrace!”

Klaus glared down at them. “The relationship between the Master and the Empire is very complex and very delicate. I’ll not have any of your jägers screwing it up just because you miss Gil.”

“Not every jäger vould go straight to Paris.”

“Name one who wouldn’t.”

The silence was as deafening as it is accusatory. “I’ll reinstate leave once you can assure me that all of your jägers will obey orders when it comes to the empire’s relationships with world powers.” Klaus had never sat down to begin with. He almost wishes he had just so he could stand up and signal the end of this conversation. “Until then, all jägers are on watch.”

On his way out he grabbed Dietrich’s cup and drained it out of pure spite.

He spends the rest of the day drunk as a result.

7

If he set part of the airship on fire, could he use that as an excuse to call Gil home? No, that wouldn’t work. Logic would dictate that if the airship was attacked by unknown forces he would keep Gil as far away from it as possible.

Maybe if he set part of Paris on fire instead?

He needed to talk with his spymaster. He’d know what part of Paris is most flammable. Boris caught up to him on the hall. Boris knew about Paris. He’d had to stock up on facts about it before Gil left. “Boris what part of Paris do you think is the most flammable?”

Boris paused for barely half a second before regrouping. “I’m sure Paris won’t burst into flames around Gil.”

“You misunderstand Boris. I want to set part of Paris on fire. So I can call Gil back.”

Boris’s pause was much longer this time. “Sir I feel I should remind you we’re trying to play nice with Paris.”

“Voltaire wouldn’t know it was me.”

They ended up in front of his office. Hadn’t he been going towards his spymaster. He cast a suspicious glance at Boris. Boris remained unmoved. “We’re still behind on paperwork Herr Baron.”

“Fine,” Klaus relented. He could bend to reason. “We’ll come back to the fire thing later.”

There was a cup of tea sitting on the edge of his desk. Well, calling it tea might be pushing it. Tea should steam, not smoke. It appeared Zoing had finally given up running around in circles. Good. Arranging him as the object of a jäger hunt like he’d planned probably would not have been his best idea had he actually gone through with it.

That the tea killed the current tea-testing plant was expected. The miniature explosion it created was not. They both stared at the smoking remains of the pot. Klaus tipped the cup forward and peered into the bottom of it. “If we were to recreate this and manufacture it in large quantities we could drop it on Paris’s downtown district.”

“I’m not sure that’s the best of ideas Herr Baron,” Boris said, gently prying the cup from his grasp.

Klaus reached for the cup, frowning when Boris didn’t relinquish it. “We’d wait until a time when Gil was in class of course.” 

Boris paused. Again. “Given everything we’ve seen the past week,” he said slowly, “I think there’s a very high chance that Gil would show up anyway. He seems historically attracted to… fire. And generalized chaos.”

Klaus hummed as he considered Boris’s words. “You’re probably right.” Knowing Gil he would dive right in the middle of things. It would probably be best to scrap the idea of attacking Paris, for safety reasons if nothing else. “See that the cup is properly disposed of. We don’t want a repeat of what happened last time.”

“Of course, Herr Baron.” With a bow Boris left.

And Klaus was no closer to having Gil back.

8

Klaus started the day before dawn. He’d woken up at two in the morning and thrown himself into the semi-sentient mountain of paperwork in his office, intent on burying himself in it. He’d managed to excavate the second chair but was no closer to finding his actual desk when Boris came in with the morning reports.

He set the mail down on the crest of the paperwork mountain and stepped back but didn’t leave. “I have mail for you Herr Baron,” he said, brandishing a small stack in his lower arms.

“Take it away. Burn all of it.”

“Of course, Herr Baron.” He set one of the letters down and turned to leave.

“I said burn _all_ of it.”

“That one’s from Gil.” Klaus nearly brained himself on the hidden edge of his own desk in his scramble to pick up the letter. It was thin, only a single page, sealed with a blob of wax and crumpled in a way that said it had traveled here in a security tube. Klaus clung to it like it might disappear if he blinked. “I’ll come back in an hour after you’ve had a chance to read it.”

Klaus tore his gaze away from the envelope long enough to pin Boris with what he hoped was a look of unimpressed incredulity. “The letter’s barely a page long. It’s hardly going to take an hour to read.”

“Of course Herr Baron. I’ll be back in an hour.”

Once Boris slipped out of the room Klaus turned back to the letter. His hands were trembling. He forced them to steady as he carefully slit the seal open.

**Klaus,**

**I hope you don’t find this too early a space to write to you in. I know you are ever busy and do not wish to distract you from your duties. I merely wished to let you know that I’ve settled in…**

He was still rereading it when Boris returned.


End file.
